Anne Cathrine Holth's project revolves around coordination in the public sector, and in particular the coordination role of the County Governor. Political decisions and measures are designed through a network of public institutions, and the goal is equality and good service production.
"In this system, the County Governor of each County, is given a coordination role. In this research, the goal has been to investigate how the County Governor can understand and grasp this role," writes the candidate to inn.no.
Holth has carried out her doctoral research in the PhD programme in PhD in Teaching and Teacher Education (PROFF). Her thesis is titled "'Coordination for learning' A study of County Governor’s role of the coordination within the 'Kultur for læring' (learning culture)".
A number of national governing documents designed for the County Governor contain objectives and descriptions related to coordination. Through document analysis, Holth has looked at how the topic of coordination is presented and what goals, guidelines and expectations are provided from the national level to the regional level.
"Through a case study, the work of coordinating the public sector at the county level to reach the national goals have been studied," she says.
Holth has also taken a closer look at the municipal level and how the County Governor's coordination role is reflected in service production there. With this, lines have been drawn from state national governance to the citizens of the municipalities.
"I found that that the leeway the County Governor has to fulfil it's coordination role, does not have the ideal terms to succeed with the goal of political unity and coherence. The research also reveals that institutional change occurred to varying degrees in different organizations in the public sector as a result of the work underlying the case study," writes Holth.
Holth believes her research should be of interest to all parts of the public sector.
"The County Governor should benefit from the content and results of this research. The same applies to ministries and directorates," says Anne Cathrine Holth.
The main findings of the PhD:
- The County Governor is governed by various governance logics. Classic public management is the leading logic. The new public management logic is also influential. The new public governance logic provides good terms for coordination, but this logic is less prominent in the governing of the County Governor.
- The County Governor has limited flexibility to apply their knowledge of the different municipalities in their work, as a result of the governance based on the mentioned governance logics.
- A sectorized state and the governance from the national level and from the County Governor leaves little room to handle the complexity in challenges.
- Institutional change happened in the County (Hedmark) and in the selected municipality in Hedmark. There was however no institutional change at the County Governor of Hedmark.
Here you'll find more information about Anne Cathrine Holth's public defence on 12 December 2023.
Contact information:
- anne.holth@inn.no